take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

February 22, 2012

Seattle – Fisher’s news/talk KOMO-AM/FM is #1, 4.7-4.2-6.0. And that Bonneville’s rival news/talk KIRO-FM is on its tail, 5.7-4.6-5.9. So what happened to Holiday-book champion all-Christmas “Warm”? That’s Sandusky’s soft AC KRWM, and it settled from a 12.0 to a 5.5, ranking third. Then you encounter another high-flying public radio news/talker – the University of Washington’s KUOW, in fourth place (4.5-4.2-5.2). The rest of the talk field didn’t do so well. Bonneville’s talk “Truth” KTTH, the home of Rush Limbaugh, has moved 1.6-1.3-1.4. Fisher’s new “Smart Talk” KVI sank from a 0.3 to a 0.1.

Let me repeat that.

KVI sank from a 0.3 to a 0.1. Apparently Sunrise Seattle isn't impressing too many people. From the website:

Elisa Jaffe and Mark Christopher and staff members Jennifer Austin, Brittney Perrault, and Marina Rockinger set a silly world record for "most people saying 'Sunrise Seattle' for 20 seconds while holding their tongues."

Riveting radio, no doubt.

(Hat tip to Tom Taylor for the ratings statistics.)

(left-Señor Wences) In other news, Brian Suits is out at KOGO in San Diego over a scheduling dispute. From his Facebook page: "So, just to be clear, KOGO and I agreed that I could do the Noon-2 (eventually 3) PM show from Seattle. When a change to 3-6pm was floated, we couldn't agree on what it would take to move to San Diego. The good news is, Bean from KROQ (and fellow Seattleite) is kicking my ass to do a daily podcast and occasional live shows in LA and The OC. So stay tuned."

Don O'Neill, (the "Don" of the outfit) gave Stein the ol' thumbs down like Joaquin Phoenix's character in Gladiator. Don's a blithering fool who handles success by becoming more obnoxious, and is said to be untouchable by management. Even though before they hired Jason, he and Ron fetched diet Pepsis for Dori Monson and were praying on the air in 2009 that the show would last until Xmas.

(photo: Death AngelDon)

They were flailing away in the deep caca; they were #15 in their timeslot, their days were numbered at KIRO. (You'd think...hell, they are inane and puerile, after all)

Enter Jason in Novemberof that year. He'd worked on KFI's powerful John and Ken Show, as well as Bryan Suits' Kennedy and Suits.

They rest, as they say, is history. Don O'Neill takes credit for saving the station, but it's the consensus of KIRO staffers we know: It was Jason with his big city FM talk know-how, who guided the very lame show into the new world of the PPMs and its present level of success.

They lead everyone - Dori, Dave & Luke, the morning news - in the vital 25-54 demographic; it's #2 in the PM drive (after All Things Considered). Even BlatherWatch has given them props for the show's ability to get and keep earballs.

We're sure Stein, with his resumé and abilities, will land softly somewhere. Sadly, that may be hard to do in Seattle... talk radio, but for the KIRO's is pretty much gone to flowers every one.

June 14, 2011

We read in a trade quoting Fisher PD Travis Box" that "even prior to KVI/Seattle’s flip from Talk to Oldies late last year, there’d been a lot of conversation around the company’s Emerald City

(image credit: Sibling Rivalry)

headquarters about 'how we could take what we knew about spoken-word audio content to create a product/format for a new generation of listeners.'"

No shit. That's all it's been: a lot of conversation- for years... until now with their new product/format NoizBeam.com, a digital talk platform targeting 18-49 year olds. (Their old platforms, KOMO and KVI have been only marginally successful with the 59-91 demo).

Noizbeam is a collection of established (that's a relative word on the internets) podcasts by some 20 to 30-somethings -- mostly male -- and featured across several mediums, the internet, mobile applications, traditional broadcast and "other non-traditional distribution methods."

Or so reads the press release.

(We loved the throbbing and creaming first graph of a tech site announcing the start-up that read: "Fisher Communications, Inc., a major player in local media innovation..."We who know and love the deeply-troubled local company know they're dragging years, if not decades behind their competitors and the fucking universe in new media. If anything, they've been going backwards in the innovation dep't).

Until now, with NoizBeam.

There's one name we recognize: Jeremy Grater, former KVI and KIRO producer who produced Bryan Suits and Mike Webb (and many other hats at Fisher Plaza). His podcast, The Sibling Rivalry, calls itself a discussion of “real lives, pop culture, news of the day and sometimes farts — because they’re funny.”

We get that NoizBeam isn't meant for us (we're old, and have transcended farts) and been listening to Sibling Rivalry occasionally since Webb was alive. It's our favorite on this site (they've done 174 episodes). The Sibs are conversations between Jeremy and his brother Aaron who lives back East and a woman, Stacy (or Jeremy's wife Sheryl) the feminine foils to the masculine barbarity of the brothers.

The list of podcasts include The Grapes of Rad, two guys who challenge you to “listen like your sense of humor depends on it.”

Madge and Dave are a bi-gendered couple who figure stuff out, outloud on matters of sex, gender, and rock 'n roll. And also hangovers, dead raccoons and people who only chew half sticks of gum.

The Air Raid Podcast is yet another couple of guys: they're the ones That Drop Bombs of Awesome In To Your Earholes!

Famous radio sidekick/producer Sean Detore (of TBTL and The John Curley Show) makes some appearances on Rad. He has a particularly interesting sense of humor when the FCC's not his overlord.

And it's not, of course, NoizBeam free-styles the seven dirties like there's no tomorrow - it's a big FUCC-you to the FCC.

It's like listening-in on conversations at the urinals while sitting in a stall in the men's room at a wrestling match. It's fat jokes or dick jokes or combinations of both. (Hey, he's got a dick-do! What's a dick-do? That's when your gut sticks out farther than your dick do). It's discussions of hair gel, Anthony Weiner (of course) cock-push-ups, innovative onanism, and other explorations of regions of the nether kind.

Lots of booze-talk, weed-smoking, of avid discussions about passing gas and/or urine tests. Glib, muchly sophomoric conversations about poop, pop music and culture, body functions and trials in the lives of couples with small children or babies. (There's a poignant tale of an infant who throws-up into her mother's mouth- if that doesn't make you want to dial up NoizBeam immediately, you must be 49 and a half or a woman).

There's much self-absorbed, professional/personal navel-gazing normal with males at that age-stage. And jokes you won't get if you didn't memorize certain action movies.

We're not being condescending here, we like this site. It's uncensored and off-beat funny, styles we admire. Our only criticism is the obvious one- The gender balance is tilted to the Men's Club side. We wish there were a couple of women-only casts ... and how about some gays?

Most of all, we're amazed and love that it lives under the stodgy imprimatur of Fisher Communications.

April 01, 2011

KUOW PD Jeff Hansen announced today that longtime KOMO talker, and radio conservative John Carlson will join Steve Scher to co-host the weekdaily, morning blab-cast: Weekday (m-f, 9a-12p). He will start May 15.

“John is a fine broadcaster, and a Seattle native,” said Hansen in a press release: “He’ll bring a new point of view to KUOW listeners."

January 24, 2011

Arbitron released us wide-eyed and buck-naked this month back into the dismal world of who-gives-a-damn-what-you-think.

We felt distinctly abandoned. I'm a man without a meter.

For the last 2 years, me and my significant other have been toting around the little pager-like PPMs™ (Portable People Meters™) collecting puny sums of money for couriering data from Seattle to data bots in Columbia, Maryland.

Arbitron surveys 1/40 of one percent of the population and every two years rotates the sample.

January 14, 2011

In the December ratings book, news talk radio has jumped back to the fore, leaving a bevy of music stations in the dust.

KOMO was no. 2 with 4.9% share of the listenership. That is very good and reflects, we're told, that they ruled the morning. Fisher folded the KVI talk format and turned it over to Bad Nostalgic Hits of the Pleistocene in the November. Did all those KVI-ers come home to Jesus and follow John Carlson (m-f, 3-6p) on KOMO?

November 16, 2010

(More Q&A trailer trash-talk from Billly Bob. He's a guy we talked into giving up his radio management career to write for BlatherWatch. He once lived in Laurelhurst, but he had to give that up for the Happy Camper Man-This-Is Really-Livin' Park & Putt-Putt Golf Course near Monroe, WA. Billly has the ability to make a match burn twice, and has extinguished himself as the only radio critic in America with 3 consecutive consonants in his name. He says the middle L is silent. He's another reason to give us money. Read more BB here).

by Billy Bob

I took last week off, went to the Emerald Queen for Veteran's Day, but now I'm back with more of your radio questions...

Dear Billy: I'm hearing that in recognition of the recent election and the victories by Republicans, NPR is going to start a few new shows which we'll be able to hear on KUOW. The new shows include: Morning Rendition; All Things Replundered, and Wait, Wait, Don't Fuck Me! What do you hear? Signed, NPR Fan in Dupont

November 01, 2010

It ends a 15-year stint for a station widely considered seminal in the talk format. It was the first all-conservative big-market talk station.

In a written statement, KVI PD Travis Box said the station will play "Greatest Hits of the '60s and '70s", starting Nov. 8. (Music on AM? sounds nutz, but then again we thought right-wing talk was nutz).

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.